The Impact of Mexican Muralism on African American Murals
Muralism in the United States experienced a dramatic transition under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration in the 1930s. Influenced by the example of the Mexican mural renaissance and funded by a comprehensive program of federal patronage, the public mural acted as an ideal way of circumventing the private culture of the easel image and introducing art to the citizens.[1] The revisionist historical images and radical socialist politics visible in many of the works, created by Mexican muralists during their visits to the United States, had a substantial and long-lasting influence on the art of African Americans affiliated with the New Negro art movement. Like their Latino counterparts, African American artists sought to establish a class-conscious cultural image that prioritized the struggle for social justice in the face of injustice and structural repression.[2]
Aaron Douglas is one of the African American artists who was significantly influenced by Mexican muralists. His work also moved away from a 1920s Jazz Age practice that depicted the performance-based creativity and supposedly natural musicality of African Americans towards works that concentrated on working-class struggles. The Marxist social consciousness he saw in the work of Rivera, Siquero, and Orozco was a significant contributor to his creative growth, as the artist told the Amsterdam News (Haskell and Mark 2020, 221-222). As Douglas notes as one of his own influences, one of the most important draws of Mexican muralism to African American artists was the movement's focus on pointing out economic injustice and migration-related racial cruelty, in both the past and current reality of both nations.
Aaron Douglas, inspired by Mexican muralists, produced Aspects of Negro Life (1934), a four-panel mural sequence for the Harlem Branch Library on 135th Street in Manhattan, which is now the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture. Douglas tracked African American history through four periods and two mass migrations: from Africa to enslavement in America, through Emancipation and Reconstruction, through the Jim Crow South, and finally northward with the Great Migration to Harlem. Douglas' work was noteworthy for its historical scope as well as its portrayal of America from the perspective of African Americans. The final panel in the mural, Song of the Towers (fig. 1), portrays the dreams of the American descendants of the kidnapped and enslaved Africans shown in the first three murals. Song of the Towers is a siren song of economic and social hope; It is a promise of freedom from the systemic and casual violence of the South.[3]
Similar to Aaron Douglas’s four-panel mural series, in 1932, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros painted a mural called América Tropical (fig. 2) that illustrates the systemic oppression in American history. He painted the mural at a time when anti-immigration sentiment was increasing as Mexican Americans were being scapegoated for the Great Depression in the 1930s.[4] The mural portrays an eagle attacking a crucified man as two revolutionaries pointed a gun at the vicious creature. The eagle and the crucified man represent the impact of the US colonial subjugation of the proletariat.[5] After the mural was unveiled, the authorities retaliated by ordering Siqueiros to leave the country and whitewashing the mural.[6]
Both murals mentioned above challenge the government by depicting the struggles of oppressed groups in America in a public space. The murals focus on the theme of resistance as they make a bold statement against the systemic oppression in the U.S. The themes of resistance, critiques of government, and systemic repression are prominent in contemporary Los Angeles muralism as well. For instance, Black Lives Matters (fig. 3), a 148-foot-long mural was painted in honor of a movement revitalized by Floyd, who died on May 25, 2020 after a Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes (Pineda, 2020). The mural, which is located across the street from a comedy club in Los Angeles, is believed to be the country's largest painting dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. The mural illustrates protesters holding up images of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who died at the hands of law enforcement. To honor black women like Taylor, the mural depicts a masked protester carrying a sign that reads, "Protect Black Women."
Aaron Douglas is one of the African American artists who was significantly influenced by Mexican muralists. His work also moved away from a 1920s Jazz Age practice that depicted the performance-based creativity and supposedly natural musicality of African Americans towards works that concentrated on working-class struggles. The Marxist social consciousness he saw in the work of Rivera, Siquero, and Orozco was a significant contributor to his creative growth, as the artist told the Amsterdam News (Haskell and Mark 2020, 221-222). As Douglas notes as one of his own influences, one of the most important draws of Mexican muralism to African American artists was the movement's focus on pointing out economic injustice and migration-related racial cruelty, in both the past and current reality of both nations.
Aaron Douglas, inspired by Mexican muralists, produced Aspects of Negro Life (1934), a four-panel mural sequence for the Harlem Branch Library on 135th Street in Manhattan, which is now the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture. Douglas tracked African American history through four periods and two mass migrations: from Africa to enslavement in America, through Emancipation and Reconstruction, through the Jim Crow South, and finally northward with the Great Migration to Harlem. Douglas' work was noteworthy for its historical scope as well as its portrayal of America from the perspective of African Americans. The final panel in the mural, Song of the Towers (fig. 1), portrays the dreams of the American descendants of the kidnapped and enslaved Africans shown in the first three murals. Song of the Towers is a siren song of economic and social hope; It is a promise of freedom from the systemic and casual violence of the South.[3]
Similar to Aaron Douglas’s four-panel mural series, in 1932, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros painted a mural called América Tropical (fig. 2) that illustrates the systemic oppression in American history. He painted the mural at a time when anti-immigration sentiment was increasing as Mexican Americans were being scapegoated for the Great Depression in the 1930s.[4] The mural portrays an eagle attacking a crucified man as two revolutionaries pointed a gun at the vicious creature. The eagle and the crucified man represent the impact of the US colonial subjugation of the proletariat.[5] After the mural was unveiled, the authorities retaliated by ordering Siqueiros to leave the country and whitewashing the mural.[6]
Both murals mentioned above challenge the government by depicting the struggles of oppressed groups in America in a public space. The murals focus on the theme of resistance as they make a bold statement against the systemic oppression in the U.S. The themes of resistance, critiques of government, and systemic repression are prominent in contemporary Los Angeles muralism as well. For instance, Black Lives Matters (fig. 3), a 148-foot-long mural was painted in honor of a movement revitalized by Floyd, who died on May 25, 2020 after a Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes (Pineda, 2020). The mural, which is located across the street from a comedy club in Los Angeles, is believed to be the country's largest painting dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. The mural illustrates protesters holding up images of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who died at the hands of law enforcement. To honor black women like Taylor, the mural depicts a masked protester carrying a sign that reads, "Protect Black Women."
Notes
1. Patterson, Jody. “The Art of Swinging Left in the 1930s: Modernism, Realism, and the Politics of the Left in the Murals of Stuart Davis.” Art History 33, no. 1 (2010): 98–123. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2009.00718.x2. Haskell, Barbara, and Mark A. Castro. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020.
3. Ibid.
4. Ruben Martinez. “Uncovering L.A.’s Whitewashed History; Access to Siqueiros’ Famed Mural, ‘America Tropical,’ Will Push Us to Engage Our Past.” Los Angeles Times, 2010. https://www-proquest-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/docview/751435827?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14749
5. Montgomery, Sara Janelle. “The Long Arm of the Wall: Mural, Myth, and Memory in ‘América Tropical’’ Masters diss., Texas Christian University, 2017.
6. Ruben Martinez. “Uncovering L.A.’s Whitewashed History; Access to Siqueiros’ Famed Mural, ‘America Tropical,’ Will Push Us to Engage Our Past.” Los Angeles Times, 2010. https://www-proquest-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/docview/751435827?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14749
Bibliography
Carter, Warren. “Painting the Revolution: State, Politics and Ideology in Mexican Muralism.” Third text 28, no. 3 (2014): 282–291. https://doi-org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1080/09528822.2014.900922
Dickerman, Leah. “Aaron Douglas and Aspects of Negro Life.” October 174 (2020): 126–162. https://direct-mit-edu.libproxy2.usc.edu/octo/article/doi/10.1162/octo_a_00411/95983/Aaron-Douglas-and-Aspects-of-Negro-Life
Haskell, Barbara, and Mark A. Castro. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020.
Indych, Anna Patricia. “Mexican Muralism Without Walls: The Critical Reception of Portable Work by Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros in the United States, 1927–1940” PhD diss., New York University, 2003.
Indych-López, Anna. “Mural Gambits: Mexican Muralism in the United States and the ‘Portable’ Fresco.” The Art bulletin (New York, N.Y.) 89, no. 2 (2007): 287–305. https://www-proquest-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/docview/222979014?pq-origsite=primo&https://search.proquest.com/pq1lit
Montgomery, Sara Janelle. “The Long Arm of the Wall: Mural, Myth, and Memory in ‘América Tropical’’ Masters diss., Texas Christian University, 2017.
Patterson, Jody. “The Art of Swinging Left in the 1930s: Modernism, Realism, and the Politics of the Left in the Murals of Stuart Davis.” Art history 33, no. 1 (2010): 98–123. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2009.00718.x
Pineda, Dorany. “Across L.A., Black Lives Matter murals appear like billboards for justice”. Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-12/black-lives-matter-murals-los-angeles
Ruben Martinez. “Uncovering L.A.’s Whitewashed History; Access to Siqueiros’ Famed Mural, ‘America Tropical,’ Will Push Us to Engage Our Past.” Los Angeles Times, 2010. https://www-proquest-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/docview/751435827?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14749
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- Figure 1: Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Tower, 1934, oil on canvas, Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, New York Public Library
- Figure 2: David Alfaro Siqueiros, América Tropical, fresco mural, 1932, on the second story exterior wall of the Italian Hall, located in the center of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument in downtown Los Angeles.
- Figure 3: Alexandra Allie Belisle, Amanda Ferrell Hale, Noah Humes, PeQue Brown and Shplinton, Black Lives Matter, 2020, Hollywood, LA.